


Spirit Thine Away

by japansace



Series: My Love, We Deserve the Softest Eternity [9]
Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: (i mean OBVIOUSLY), Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Blood, Elves, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Hurt/Comfort, Kidnapping, M/M, Magic, Mind Games, Prince Victor Nikiforov, Princess Yuuri Katsuki, Protective Victor Nikiforov, Swords & Sorcery, Violence, almost quite literally lol, they just hug each other a lot, yes really i'm so sorry
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-16
Updated: 2021-03-11
Packaged: 2021-03-13 18:21:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 9,430
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28782609
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/japansace/pseuds/japansace
Summary: For a moment, Yuuri only stands, frozen, hoping—perhaps futilely—that the human has not yet sensed his presence.He shouldn’t have been so naïve.
Relationships: Katsuki Yuuri/Victor Nikiforov
Series: My Love, We Deserve the Softest Eternity [9]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1133426
Comments: 91
Kudos: 152





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Aaaaaaand we're back. I'm still working on other things, but I couldn't stay away from my elves for too long.
> 
> This installment in particular has been in the drafts for a loooong time, so I'm excited but nervous to get this out there.
> 
> Well... here goes.
> 
> Ages: 
> 
> Victor: 2110  
> Yuuri: 2070

The field before war lies quiet, lifeless.

The animals know not to stay. Something in the air raises their hackles, energizes their blood. They scatter under bush and brush: birds escaping to the mountains, deer and dogs fleeing towards the sea.

Only those that would _engage_ in the war dare to remain.

Victor waits in his and Yuuri’s tent, restless as the nature around them. He’s alone, for the moment; his father, the King of Woodland, has called on Yuuri to give him special instructions for the fight ahead. Victor would have accompanied to offer his support, of course, but Yuuri had only gently but firmly pushed him back into bed, claiming he’d report back and not to worry over him.

Now Victor regrets not fighting harder to tag along.

 _I’m coming back, Vitya._ And the declaration gives Victor so much _relief,_ he feels his chest cavity nearly collapse in with the force of it.

 _Such dramatics,_ Yuuri comments, and Victor can almost hear the accompanying giggle, even from all the way across camp.

Still, Victor greets him at the door.

“I missed you.”

“I know.”

And Victor knows that he knows, but he endeavors to wrap Yuuri up in his arms best he can in spite of it, eliminating even the barest hints of space between them with Yuuri tucked up under his chin, soft and warm and _safe._

Yuuri, for his part, simply melts.

“What does Father want for you to do?” Victor asks, after some time.

“Same as always, really,” Yuuri says, still within Victor arms. “Get up at dawn, get as close as I can to the orcish camp, and read their battle strategy from them.”

“Alone?”

“It would be risky otherwise, yes. If they sense my presence, it’ll all be for naught.”

“Let me come with you.”

“Vitya—”

“I’ll be quiet as a mouse!”

“I’ve done it a thousand times already, Vitya. I’ll be _quite_ all right.”

Victor only sighs, holding Yuuri closer. “I—” he starts, choked, “—I understand that this is something only you can do—and I have absolute faith in your abilities, of course. But still, I can’t help but wish to be there with you, to be at your side.”

Yuuri draws back just a touch—just enough to look Victor in the eyes, draw the pad of his thumb down the ridge of Victor’s cheek. “I love you, darling, but I swear to you I’ll be fine. As I said, I’ve done this a thousand times in a thousand different confrontations, and never _once_ have I been detected. I’ll be beside their camp and back here before you can blink, practically.”

“Still too much time,” Victor whines.

Yuuri laughs soft, under his breath, then leans in to kiss the skin under one of Victor’s eyes. “Just think of me the whole time, and it’ll be as though I never left.”

Victor _severely_ doubts that, but it’ll have to do, he supposes.

* * *

As instructed, Yuuri rises at dawn—though he’s none too happy about it. Yuuri has always been a creature of the night—one to easily skip a tantalizing brunch for a few more hours of blissful sleep—so when he awakes, it’s to no small amount of groaning and a bedraggled appearance. Victor, who prefers an early rise, wakes with him and sorts his husband out while Yuuri half-sleeps sitting up, his head against Victor’s shoulder while Victor picks out an outfit for him, wrests his hair into something more manageable. He removes the gemstones from Yuuri’s ears—as espionage calls for a more muted look—and tucks Yuuri’s betrothal necklace safety beneath his lapel of his shirt, for safe keeping.

Yuuri only objects when Victor starts to take a rouge brush to him.

“Vitya, I don’t need to be _prettied_ —”

“I agree. You’re naturally gorgeous on your own. But why not indulge me?”

And since Yuuri knows he only does it to prolong Yuuri’s departure, he stops his squirming and allows Victor a little leeway to be ridiculous.

The sun has barely risen by the time Victor and Yuuri come out of the tent, but even its minimal light is blotted out by a blanket of cloud coverage, occasionally depositing fat droplets of water over grass and leaf. “It’ll be pouring come afternoon,” Victor says wearily, folding his arms into the fabric of his sleeves. “Will you be warm enough?”

“Yes,” Yuuri laughs. “I’m bundled up nicely under this shirt and trousers, thanks to my _very_ considerate husband.”

Victor goes a little pink in the bridge of the nose. “Just checking.”

They stop at the embankment of the camp, to say their final farewells. “So quick,” Yuuri assures, into the skin of Victor’s neck. “There and back in a flash.”

“You’re sure?”

“Yes, Vitya.”

“Then…” Victor pulls away, his hands caressing down Yuuri’s shoulders and arms, all the way to his hands and the tips of his fingers to give them a final squeeze. “I’ll be here.”

Yuuri smiles at this, kissing Victor at the corner of the mouth. “I’ll send you thoughts until I’m out of range.”

“I’ll hold you to it, darling.”

Yuuri leaves quickly, after that—leaves by shadow, sticking to the outlines of trees, the outcropping of rocks. It’s not a preferable terrain for the mission—the enchanted forest would be much better suited for it—but those who deal in reconnaissance rarely have the benefit of a home field advantage. Their job is to analyze and adapt accordingly, a split-second decision often the hair’s-width of difference between victory and defeat. So Yuuri finds cover where he can, knowing—above all—he is not to be spotted or the game is as good as lost.

The orcs have made camp on a decline, practically at the bottom of a ravine. While the position would usually be considered an unwise one to take, it functions well against elves above all other creatures, as they cannot fly like dragons, nor can they burrow underground like goblins or sneak under brush like hobbits. To approach, they can only charge straight ahead: with tall stature and likely on horseback, which on an incline such as this could easily be spotted from miles away.

With this in mind, Yuuri makes his moves accordingly: slow and steady, each step taken with considerable care. He’s in no rush; a quick maneuver is a foolish one here, with how he knows orcish scouts will have their eyes fixated on the hill, keen for any movement.

He’s halfway down when he hears it: a low growling in the distance, one that rattles the very bones. He stops with his hand against a tree, eyes going wide. The sound is far off, but ominous. There should be no animals in the immediate area, least of all beasts that could produce a sound so menacing. He turns his ear towards the direction he heard the noise from, trying to hone in on the groan, parse out the exact nature of it; but it’s gone quickly as it had arrived, leaving not but a large swath of silence, deafening in the face of a potential hidden threat.

Yuuri waits several moments—then moves on. As much as it unsettles him, the noise could be nothing: one tree trunk rubbing against another, a far off bird with a distinct call, even an orc from the enemy camp. It’s not enough to call off his mission, and the faction is just ahead. A hundred more paces or so, and he will have gotten what he came here to get and be free to return to base: return to his Vitya, be that much closer to ending this whole conflict and being on his way back home.

He’s giddy, even, with the idea of convincing his parents-in-law to stop off at Sealand on their way back from war, to soak in the hot springs and indulge in his mother’s good cooking.

Unfortunately, vigilant though Yuuri is of the camp directly ahead of him, he lets his surroundings fall a bit to the wayside—enough so, in fact, that a man—a whole human _man_ —escapes his notice until he’s nearly beside him, sitting on a stump and whittling at a twig with what looked to be a hunter’s knife.

For a moment, Yuuri only stands, frozen, hoping—perhaps futilely—that the human has not yet sensed his presence.

He shouldn’t have been so naïve.

“Are you Princess Yuuri?” The man doesn’t even deign to _look up_ as he says it.

Yuuri feels every fiber of his being go rigid. “Depends on who is asking.”

The man raises his eyes then, blade caught on a sliver of coiled wood. “A stranger.”

“Then I refuse to answer.”

He sighs, long and heavy, through a thick, midnight-black beard.

“And you really shouldn’t be here,” Yuuri feels the need to add. “A battle is to take place here soon enough. I should hate to see a human get caught up in a confrontation they had no business being a part of.”

“Is that so?”

“Yes.”  
  
“Well—” The man stands abruptly, throwing his knife, blade-first, into the meat of the stump he’d just vacated. “—good thing I’m a part of it then.”

It’s then that Yuuri knew, with icy-cold certainty, that he’d miscalculated.

_Who—?_

But the thought bounces back at him, making him flinch and hold his head with the force of it. It was like trying to read a horse, or a dog, or—

_Shapeshifter._

Before Yuuri’s eyes, the man shifts: head first growing wide, then hairy; the chest expanding as though with a massive breath; the fingers turning into paws, the legs into wide casks of fur rippling with sinew. Claws form; teeth burst from between wicked red lips. A roar rolls out of the beast’s dreadful throat, shaking what few birds remain from their trees, bugs from their dirt mounds. He swipes at the air with giant mitts of matted fur and razor-sharp points, growls tapering off from his flaring nostrils and unhinged jowl even as his eyes start to go wild.

Yuuri looks to the orcish camp—in stark incredulity—as the last bit of his rational thought roils through his head before it dies a most cruel and premature death, in the face of unfeeling fact:

 _Where are the orcs? Surely they must have heard that._

_Of course they heard that. They set this up. It was all a trap._

_No one is coming to save you._

Then, from a voice that sounded suspiciously like that of his beloved—

 _Run._

Yuuri does, before he can hardly register the word. His feet know what his mind has yet to comprehend; his hands know to draw the saber from his belt, keeping it at his side as he hears the massive ursine shapeshifter barrel after him, paws shaking the very earth beneath them. In a game of chase, Yuuri knows he’s immediately outmatched; but if he could only make it to a high enough tree—a pine, perhaps—he could perhaps wait out the threat from on-high, until someone came looking for him. He hopes—in that desperate sprint—that they send a _dozen_ elves to retrace his steps, though he knows it unlikely and in vain.

About as unlikely and in vain, perhaps, as making it to that tree ahead.

As he thought, a paw comes tumbling down towards his head before he’s reached any sort of salvation; but he anticipates this and holds his sword up high, slicing the pad of the bear’s appendage to ribbons. There’s an enraged howl from behind him, then another paw coming down upon his arm, throwing the blade across the field and far out of Yuuri’s grasp. The blow turns him fully around: slicing through the front of Yuuri’s tunic, blood bursting from upon his forearm. He hardly feels the wounds, with how adrenaline sings through his veins, but he has just enough wherewithal to register the strap of his betrothal necklace being sliced clean through, making a dull sort of pinging sound as the stone of it strikes the prairie floor.

It’s the last thing he sees, lying there upon his back, bleeding: the stark auburn light of the garnet lying across the ground, being pelted with rain as it at last begins to come down in earnest.

Then a blow comes to his head, and he knows nothing more.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, I went a tiiiiiiny bit over a week. But to be fair, between this chapter and the last, I had two interviews and got a job offer. So I feel like I've accomplished a lot.

It’s the most hideous weather Victor has seen in his two thousand one hundred ten years of life.

Just ghastly. Torrential rain, coming down in droves. Yuuri shouldn’t still be out there, Victor thinks. Literally, he _shouldn’t_ be out there. He should have returned with his report at least an hour ago, and Victor has no qualms about pointing out that fact— _again,_ as many times as it takes—to his father.

“Hmph,” Yakov only says, but Victor’s no fool. He knows that _Yakov knows_ that he’s indeed correct; and with every minute that goes by with his whereabouts unknown, the danger increases for Yuuri, increases for _all of them._

(But it is mostly Yuuri that Victor is concerned with, of course.)

Victor only has to make a show of pacing the grounds a little while longer before Yakov at last capitulates. “You can go after him,” he says, hardly able to get out the words before Victor makes a mad dash for the armory. “But take another elf with you! I’m not making the mistake of sending a single canary into the coal mine again!”

“I’ll go,” Lilia says, rising from her station. Yakov looks ready to protest this, but by the time he’s opened his mouth, Victor is back with weaponry, merely towing his mother by the arm outside the perimeter of the camp.

They follow Yuuri’s path swiftly but no less carefully. Yuuri was cautious in his approach, certainly, but the signs of him are still there if you look: a bent branch, a flattened blade of grass. Victor thinks thoughts for him as they travel, if he were to try to listen in; but his mind remains stubbornly quiet but for an acute sense of panic, steadily rising in his chest.

Victor tries to ignore his mother’s growing looks of concern, as they close in on the orcish camp.

Then the whole of the landscape is before them. The field is barren, far as Victor can see—and even more so up ahead.

The orcs have _moved_. Where intel once told them the camp lay, an empty ravine meets them, with only bits of rope and charred wood to signify where they once occupied the space.

Victor and Lilia step out of the shadows at this, with no enemies in sight to continue to hide from.

“I don’t understand…”

Was Yuuri greeted by this sight and compelled to travel on? Is that why he was late in his return? Merely a studious nature? No, it didn’t seem right. This move felt too _sudden._ Yuuri surely must have seen them. But then what? Had he been spotted? Had the orcs been spooked by a single elf, made a hasty retreat in his wake?

“Vitya…”

Victor is stopped by an arm thrown across the chest. He looks to his mother, generating a questioning noise in the back of his throat. His mother looks _haunted_ then, like Victor has hardly ever seen her: pale and sunken, stricken.

Victor follows her sightline, before Lilia can force a word out against it.

A splatter of blood. That’s what Victor sees first: rust-red liquid painting the prairie floor. It looks fresh—still wet—and spilled in a distinct dappling pattern: as though _cleaved_ out by a animal, no weapon wielded by an upright creature capable of making such a mess.

Then Victor’s eyes track downwards, and—and—

Instantly his head is full of white-hot noise.

Faintly he recognizes a pain, as he falls onto his knees. He hardly registers his mother calling his name, dull and dim as though she was speaking to him from the inside of an hourglass. The world is blurred; the lines are fuzzy. His knees aren’t enough to support him, suddenly; he falls even onto his hands then, the bite of gravel piercing into the meat of his palms. Bile rises into the throat, and he chokes on it, repels it from his body, on instinct.

And perhaps most unbearably, his mind is so _quiet._

So quiet, so quiet, _so quiet, so quiet, so quiet—_

Yuuri, Yuuri, Yuuri, _Yuuri, Yuuri, Yuuri, Yuuri,_ _Yuuri—_

“Vitya!”

Victor sucks in a long breath, as though he was being held underwater. The air is no good—he feels _empty_ with it—and he chokes again with his lungs filled, as though the very atmosphere is poisonous now, without Yuuri in it.

Ice cold fingers settle over his nape, and it’s enough to shock him out of emptying the contents of his stomach again, if only for the moment. He feels almost outside of himself—sees himself as a desperate, writhing creature of distended pupils and a pallor complexion—and flexes his fingers upon the grass only to find them cold, recognizing for the first time that he’s covered the field in a thick sheet of black ice.

It's only then that the roar of rain returns to his ears again, as though the very sky itself is crying out.

He crawls forward—those few measly feet—and grips Yuuri’s betrothal necklace with a hand that doesn’t feel quite his own, the palm fully encapsulating the gem where it’s stained with blood.

“Vitya.” Lilia says it now carefully, and though it still feels far away, Victor listens, just to have something to hold on to. “Vitya, it’s not enough blood.”  
  
 _It’s too_ _much,_ Victor’s mind immediately snaps back—but then he realizes her meaning. Yes, it’s a significant amount of blood; but it’s not nearly enough to have killed an elf. This amount of blood even a human could come back from, if given the correct amount of care.

Victor surveys the ground now, with wild, frantic eyes: Further afield, there’s another patch of blood, though it’s minuscule in comparison, and as well, partially dry. _Yuuri fought back._

“And they would have left his body here,” Lilia says, evenly, “as a warning. There would have been no reason to take it with them.”

That’s true as well. Surely the orcs would have known they’d go looking after a missing scout; if they wanted them scared, they would have left him upon the field.

Lilia’s stare hardens upon the bloodstain. “Besides which, this was no orc.” She reaches forward, to pluck a tuft of black hair from the ground. “Surely you’ve noticed already?”  
  
Indeed he has. His mind—scrambled though it was—had already put the pieces together: This was a beast capable of felling _Yuuri,_ an elf of supreme talent. It had to be big and it had to be fast.

And most importantly, it had to be something he couldn’t _read_.

“You think—” Victor gasps slightly, his throat still scraped raw from his earlier ordeal. “—a shapeshifter—?”

“That’s exactly what I think.”

They’re rare—and they like to keep to themselves. They were never known to involve themselves in a fight between warring factions, preferring to stick to their rivers and their forests: quiet, peaceful creatures that never caused too much of a fuss.

Until now, that is.

Lilia places a hand over her son’s back. “What do you want to do?”

Slowly, Victor uncurls his hand from around the gem of Yuuri’s betrothal necklace one finger at a time, bearing the garnet to the light. “We need to head back to camp,” he rasps. “There’s something there that will help.”

* * *

Yuuri wakes to a vicious headache, the pain radiating from the center of his forehead outwards, in small bursts.

The room—or rather, the entire cabin he is in—is dark. His body is heavy, but his instincts are sharp; he tries to extract himself from his position upon the floor immediately but finds he’s chained to the center support beam: two iron cuffs on both of his arms, with a small metal lead between them. As it is, Yuuri can only move a foot or two around in a tight circle, limited, even, to the mobility available to him with his hands kept entirely behind his back.

Not for the first time, Yuuri wishes he was literally _any other_ type of talent. A fire talent or a water talent—or even ice or earth—would have made quick work of his predicament.

“There’s no use struggling,” a voice says, from across the room.

Yuuri tilts his head; in what appears to be the kitchen area of this one-room cabin, the shapeshifter—presenting as human—sits at a low table, hacking at a block of wood.

“What are you going to do with me?” Yuuri asks. He shrugs his shoulders—rattling his cuffs—for emphasis. “You’ve got me trapped. You could have killed me a hundred times over already. Why keep me here?”

“It’s not for me to decide,” the shifter merely says.

Ah, of course.

That’s when Yuuri senses them: an approximate orcish army, a little under three miles off. Yuuri can read some of their thoughts from where he is, though nothing substantial. Just words and phrases, most too soft to understand or cut off.

So he sits, and he waits, and when they are within radius, that’s when he _strikes._

Tired as he is, it doesn’t take much. He can see it in his mind’s eye: He projects the thoughts of his own exhaustion, and the first line of orcish defense tumbles down like dominoes. They mistake the thoughts for their own; a mere suggestion to the subconscious, and they’re dropping dead asleep. Yuuri can clearly imagine the confusion, the consternation. In fact, he doesn’t have to imagine it at all; he reads from their general a broiling frustration and sends him thoughts of a different, more sinister nature. The orc, in retaliation, swings at nothing, squealing that he’s being attacked by some invisible source. Yuuri reads the seeds of doubt, then, put into the general’s underlings; they won’t last long well as a unit with this kind of uncertainty. The entire faction is in a panic now, off-kilter. Yuuri reads one more high-ranking orc make some sort of command, and then he’s forced to rest, his head lolling against the wood of the support beam, the red bleeding out of his irises with the force of his effort.

The shapeshifter just stares at him, with a slackened jaw.

Yuuri imagines he just put on quite the show.

They’re left in silence then: just the even breathing of the shifter alongside Yuuri’s panting, from his earlier exertion.

But a hawk soon enough settles on the sill of the window, and the shifter rises to take the message from its back.

He unfurls the page, then reads it.

— _too much effort, kill the bastard—_

“ _Don’t—_ ” The shifter throws out an arm, half-changed and rippling with fur. His tone is steeped with animal prowess, a growl bookending his warning. “You stay out of my mind, elf.”

 _But I_ can _be in your mind,_ Yuuri thinks privately. _It’s only when he’s changed_ _that I can’t read him._

Yuuri thinks back to the field, to his greatest mistake. Thinks about how he tried to read the shifter while he still seemed human and tries to overlay that creature with the one currently before him. Why didn’t it work then? What about him was different now?

Perhaps he’d simply had his guard up. Perhaps he’d been partially shifted under his clothes, where Yuuri couldn’t see.

Perhaps, though, he had to _struggle_ to keep Yuuri out of his mind. Perhaps there was a weakness to be exploited, there.

“Well—” The shifter crosses the room, to pick up his axe. “—I suppose this is the end.”

 _Not while I still draw breath._ Victor would never forgive him, if Yuuri left him here. There had to be _something—_ a thought, an action of some kind. A move on this gameboard with the only tool at his disposal: his mind.

_Appeal to his humanity._

_Reach forth to draw out the sentient being within._

“Cao Bin—”  
  
The shifter halts in place, from where he’s lifted his axe.

Yuuri’s eyes flicker crimson, sorting through a new flurry of thoughts. “That is your name, isn’t it? Your mother gave it to you. It’s a lovely name.”

“I said—” Cao Bin swallows, haltingly, the axe shaking in his grip. “—to stay out of my head.”

“You were born in the woods outside of Sealand. I know them well. Don’t you love Sealand in spring? Just a magical time.”

“Y—you—”

“What _is_ a respectful shapeshifter such as yourself working with orcs for, anyway? You’re _far_ more intelligent than them.”  
  
Cao Bin lowers his weapon, in increments. “You wouldn’t understand.”  
  
“Oh, wouldn't I?” Yuuri tilts his head, with eyes aflame. “Ah, I see. Such a sad story.”

“Don’t—”

“Your species is dying out, and you merely want a home of your own.”

“Stay—”

“The enchanted forest? Oh, no, that just won’t do.”  
  
“—out—!”

“Is that what the orcs promised you in return? Oh, you poor thing; they’ve deceived you. They never intended to give you any piece of Woodland.”

The shifter stares—then stumbles back, the axe falling from his hand. He slumps into a seat by the table again, a trembling hand coming to stroke through his beard. “Is that so?”

“Yes.” Yuuri straightens, tries to appear poised. “Being from Sealand, you _must_ know. Just as the water is enchanted in Sealand, the forest is enchanted in Woodland. It won’t let anybody harm it or the inhabitants of it; taking it by force simply isn’t an option. The orcs know that full-well. I’m sure they only meant to use you for their own selfish gain, then leave you high and dry by the time you came to collect.”

“You think?”  
  
“Or… no, perhaps it’s _even more_ sinister.” Yuuri pauses, thoughtfully. “Humans are the ones that hurt your species most, but they do so mostly out of ignorance. They can’t readily tell a shapeshifter from a real bear, and—as the earth’s most vulnerable creatures—they’re prone to striking first and asking questions later. But orcs… Oh, orcs know your kind. When they attack another race, it’s not merely by _chance_.”

Yuuri takes a gamble. He tilts his head, blinks doe-ishly. “Have your people been… disappearing more often lately? With little explanation?”

Cao Bin puts his head in his hand, all but _crumbles_. “But why—?” His gentle animal instinct refuses to accept the assertion uncontested. “You would suggest—you believe they’ve been doing this for so _long_ , just for this moment—?”

“It’s quite possible.” Yuuri sighs, deeply. “They’ve been warring with Woodland on and off for centuries now. They’re not the brightest, but they certainly know how to hold a grudge.”

“Then—” The shifter curls in on himself further, breathing hard. “What am I to _do?_ ”

“Ah, well…” Yuuri smiles, just a little. “It’s a bit unorthodox—in the unique way that you’ve gotten an audience out of me—but I _am_ still Princess of Woodland.” Yuuri tries to position himself as he would upon the throne, almost feeling the weight of the crown as it settles over his head. “I do hold some clout, so… why not plead your case?”

* * *

Victor vision has tunneled. Nothing matters but for the movement of his feet under him, one foot in front of the other in front of the other in front of the other. He doesn’t spare a look behind him, to make sure his mother is still maintaining pace with him; he simply knows she is fully capable of doing so and leaves her to the task.

Victor has no explanation for his father, either, when he comes bustling into camp. He has not any time to waste—and besides, he doesn’t even know if the words would be there, if he tried to reach for them.

He merely goes into his—his and _Yuuri’s_ —tent with a whistle on his lips, summoning the dogs from their slumber.

Ten heads perk up, twenty ears attune to their master. Immediately they know something is off; happy pants morph into solemn looks, whines building up in their throats as they begin to circle Victor around the legs, restless in their unease.

“I need an animal talent in here!” Victor calls, dropping onto his knees before them and reaching into his breast pocket.

His mother has wrangled such a talent, by the time Victor has gotten Yuuri’s betrothal necklace out and before the dogs’ noses. “Tell them,” Victor says slow, even, “that Yuuri is missing, that I need them to track his scent.”

The elf tells them, his eyes shining bright. The dogs instantly bark at the information being relayed, lifting their heads with clear indignance, _enraged_ that anyone would dare touch one of their sweet masters and vowing a swift and brutal retribution.

They run out of the tent as though an inferno is hot on their tails, barking enough to disturb the rest of the settlement.

“Vitya, take a squadron,” Lilia instructs more than suggests. “You may be up for a fight.”

“Goddess on high, I hope I am.” Victor stands, the necklace in his grasp trembling with his fury. “I hope they send a battalion, a _fleet._ I hope there’s an entire _dragon’s nest_ between me and the villain who took my beloved, if only to cut my teeth on something before I rip the shapeshifter apart limb from limb.”

Lilia merely draws a cool hand down Victor’s cheek at this, with a sigh breathed from the nose. “I have to stay here with your father,” she says. “If I know orcs as well as I think I do, they’ll use the confusion of Yuuri’s abduction to try to take the offensive. But take a few elves, my dear—as many as you think you’ll need.”

“I only need one.” Victor turns towards the opening of the tent, throwing the tail-end of his cloak over the shoulders and slipping Yuuri’s necklace once again into his pocket. “But feel free to send anyone after me who thinks they can keep up.”

Lilia does—though Victor hardly notices them initially, with how he’s on a horse and riding after his dogs within the moment. But slowly, they catch up; and somewhere deep in Victor’s hardened heart, he’s grateful for them.

The dogs lead Victor’s faction back to the scene of the crime. They sniff at the ground there, growling low at the blood from where it’s been shed. Then they’re off again—braying, howling—drawing Victor and the others southwest, towards the lands that lead into Sealand.

Victor knows, logically, that they couldn’t have gotten far; the amount of time that’s passed hasn’t allowed for too terribly great a distance. Still, there is always the chance that they are still in transit—or that an army is already lying between them.

No matter though, Victor thinks, nearly riding his horse into the dirt with the force of his resolve. Whether it be merely grass and rock that he meets along the way or an apparent legion, he knows he will be recovering his love before the night descends.

This, he swears.

* * *

“You know, this negotiation might go a biiiiit better if you were to set me free.” Yuuri shakes his hands behind him, jangling the iron of the chain. “We could be on equal footing, you see.”

“Can’t.” Cao Bin looks askance, towards the door and—presumably—the orcs beyond. “I don’t have the key.”

Yuuri merely raises an eyebrow at him, shrugging at the shifter’s axe beside him.

“If I _broke_ them, I wouldn’t be able to put them back on you, if you betrayed me.”

“Oh, aren’t we far past that now?” Yuuri tilts his head, cheekily. “What’s a little abduction between friends?” At Cao’s wince, Yuuri juts out his right arm as much as he can before him. “See? Almost healed, even. That’s the advantage of being an elf.”  
  
“There’s lots of advantages to being an elf,” the shifter mutters under his breath.

“Hm?” Yuuri pulls a face. “Like what?”

“Your, ah—” Cao Bin points to him, drawing a finger through the air in circles as though he’s trying to find the appropriate words. “Your _trick._ That thing you do when your eyes turn red.”  
  
“Oh, my talent?” Yuuri leans back. “No tricks. Just an ability of mine. And not every elf can do it. Most, actually, cannot. I’m a rare breed in that way, you could say.”

“Is that why the orcs needed me?” Cao’s eyebrows scrunch forward. “I… wasn’t told much.”  
  
“Yes, I believe so.” Yuuri sighs. “I can’t read animals. Their thoughts are like gibberish to me. There are elves who can, in fact, _speak_ to animals, but that’s different. They’re not inside their minds; they’re understanding their language and speaking it back to them, in turn.” He pouts. “ _Far_ more useful than the mind, I think. But one cannot choose these things.”

“The orcs seemed to think you threat enough.”

“I suppose you’re right.”

“So then—” The shifter leans forward in his seat, setting his folded hands upon his mouth. “—my piece of Woodland—”

“Oh my, is that any way to start a petition?”

“ _Excuse me?_ ”

“Why don’t you begin by asking _nicely?_ ”

“Y—you—”

“Go on, I’m waiting.”

“You’re—” Cao’s fingers twitch, as though thirsty for the axe. “ _I’m_ still in control here.”

Yuuri crawls to the other side of the beam, facing fully away from the shifter with his nose in the air. “If it’s land _lawfully owned by Woodland elves_ that you want, I’ll need to hear a proper explanation. Sympathetic though I am to your plight, I’m not in the business of heeding to demands. Make your case or don’t. It makes no difference to me.”

Cao Bin growls, the sound full of animalistic reverb. His hand on the side of the chair in which he sits cracks, under elongated nails. “I—” A canine juts out upon his lower lip, pulling from it a drop of blood.

Then he takes a deep breath.

“ _Princess Yuuri._ ” He says it as though in physically pains him, every syllable a chore.

Yuuri squints from the corner of his eye at him. “Yes?”

“Will you—” He sighs, from behind sharpened teeth. “— _please_ consider granting me a portion of Woodland, where me and my kind can live in peace?”

“Hm.” Yuuri glances up towards the ceiling. “Well… I wish I could say yes, but it’s really not up for me to decide. I’ll have to run it by my husband.”

“Husband?”

“Oh, yes. But you are, ah, how you say… already going to be on his bad side.”

“Wha—?”

“Oh!” Yuuri’s eyes flicker bright. “Here he comes now.”

Yuuri doesn’t even have a chance to send him a cheery thought. Before he’s even finished the _sentence_ , practically, the entire cabin is awash in a snowstorm. The roof quakes; the window shutters fly off their hinges, flung out into the wilderness. Cao Bin is hardly in a standing position—eyes wide, wild with fear—before the door bursts open, the wood hitting the wall of the house with such a force that it shakes the very structure. A blizzard wind tumbles through the vacated space, bringing with it pelting ice and sleet like knives against the skin.

Cao Bin can’t even _think_ to reach for his weapon before he's thrown against the far wall with a wave of ice, frozen in place like an insect caught in a spider’s web. He looks to Yuuri then—for some reassurance, perhaps, that he’ll make it out of this ordeal alive—but Yuuri only has eyes for one.

First ten dogs come from the whiteout beyond, yapping and circling Yuuri from where he’s still chained upon the floor. Then a squad of elves, going to the shapeshifter to make sure he’s well and truly contained, and then—and _then—_

And then Victor is sliding across the ice-laden floor, only coming to stop once he has Yuuri in his arms.

“Oh, _darling—_ ” He kisses _everywhere_. Everywhere he can reach. “Yuuri, _Yuuri—_ ”

Yuuri only laughs, seeing as his arms are still forced behind him, but it's the sweetest sound Victor has ever heard.

Victor draws back suddenly, all at once. “You’re _hurt._ ” Horrified, he draws a hand under Yuuri’s chin to turn him this way and that. As expected, Yuuri is boasting a sizeable bruise to one side of the forehead, as well as a smattering of puncture wounds upon the arm. The blood is dried in the case of the latter, but it’s seeped well and good into the fabric of his shirt, nearly dying the whole of his sleeve a vibrant red.

He’s a little roughed up _everywhere_ , really, and it’s only further inciting Victor’s bloodlust, his ardent desire to rip something apart slowly and painfully, have them suffer in penance to his and Yuuri’s pain.  
  
Victor rises from his crouch slowly, like a predator on the prowl.

_Wait—_

The ice-white drains from Victor’s eyes, like a springtime melt. Oh, to have Yuuri’s thoughts again. Yuuri’s thoughts, Yuuri’s thought, _Yuuri’s thoughts—_

_It’s— misunderstanding— Ah, Vitya, my love—_

Victor goeth, before the fall. Though he hasn’t seen Yuuri in such a shape in quite some time, he knows his darling like the back of his hand: He recognizes immediately when Yuuri is at his limit, knows how to catch him, caress him, let him rest.

“I’m… I’m all right,” Yuuri says, muffled against Victor’s shoulder, but Victor doesn’t buy that at all. Still, he says nothing against it—only looks to one of the elves by the wall, pointedly. They catch his meaning easily enough and come to the opposite side of the beam Yuuri is still attached to, icing the chain until it’s brittle and then bringing their heel upon it, cracking it in two.

Yuuri instantly jolts forward, further into Victor embrace. He feels so _small_ —always so small to Victor—who holds him, strokes him, keeps him steady.

Victor goes to stand with Yuuri—taking as well their new prisoner with them—when Yuuri mumbles against Victor, barely coherent.

“W—wait.”

Victor and Yuuri’s fellow countrymen do, for instruction.

“He’s—” Yuuri takes a breath, steadying. “He was… There was… manipulation. The orcs… I’m... tired…”  
  
“ _Yuuri—_ ”

“Just… please treat him with civility. I’ll explain, later.”

The elves shrug at each other but do as their princess commands. Still, they keep a tight grip on him, ever-weary.

Yuuri figures he can sort it out at a different time.

Alone in the cabin for the moment, Victor holds Yuuri in a cradle, around the knees and the shoulders.

“I thought I lost you.” Victor doesn’t merely choke; he _quakes._ Draws his forehead against Yuuri’s, with tears staining the ashen gray of his lashes. “I thought—I _really thought—_ ”

Yuuri only closes his eyes, sends Victor a muddle of warm feelings, the best that he can muster. Traces a heart against his collar, as he has done so before—and forever will, each night before they sleep.

Victor chokes again, nearly crushing Yuuri against his chest.

His love is all right, now. Everything else can wait.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> PSA: Don't try Yuuri's negotiation tactics at home. Your results may vary.
> 
> Next time: the aftermath.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the wait, fgjklhjkl; I took that job, and it's utterly consumed my life.
> 
> Thank your local teacher. Trust me, they need the appreciation rn.

The world is a stalled, distilled snowglobe, from what Yuuri can see peeking out from within Victor’s arms.

It had been raining. He was _sure_ it’d be raining, before. But now the landscape is soft, quiet. Now the puddles have transformed into snowdrifts, the air clean and crisp and not the least bit wet: frozen, as it were, in the clouds, with only the occasional flake escaping from an otherwise crisp late-autumn sky.

“It’s my birthday,” Yuuri realizes, suddenly, softly, into the collar of Victor’s cloak, “tomorrow, isn’t it?”

“Yes.” Victor’s voice still sounds strained. Yuuri cannot see his expression—only the underside of his chin—and he aches in that moment, most ardently, to be inside his mind. “Happy birthday, my love. Please rest for me?”

Such a request, Yuuri thinks. As though he could refuse when it’s asked so sweetly.

Yuuri closes his eyes, his stomach swooping as Victor mounts a horse with him. He hears the dogs barking in the distance, already far ahead of them and leading. He’s forgetting something. He _knows_ he’s forgetting something. What is it?

There should be a vicious wind against Yuuri’s skin—with the gait of the horse—but Yuuri feels nothing. Feels encased in a bubble, warm and protected. Victor’s ice—oh, yes, Yuuri remembers now.

“Love you,” he says, slurred and stupid. Oh, but he loves him. Loves him so much he’d use his very last thought on it.

The arm around Yuuri’s shoulder tightens. “You are my world,” Victor says, and it’s the last thing Yuuri hears before he’s lulled into blessed quiet.

* * *

Yuuri wakes to doggie kisses all over him: upon his neck, cheeks, and chin. He wrinkles his nose at the treatment, tries to roll away from their affections; but then they’re merely on him again, Victor’s chuckles and gentle chides accompanying the slick of slobber as it rolls loud in his ears.

But then one of their younger pups is running a tongue over the gash on Yuuri’s head and he’s hissing, Victor coming over immediately to pull him aside, chide him now in a way that’s no longer playful but deadly serious.

“He doesn’t know,” Yuuri murmurs, blinking himself awake. Victor is a blur before him—a white apparition, soft and undefined—but it’s comforting rather than disorienting, for the moment. Soft and shapeless, like a memory sanded down at the edges.

“He should,” Victor says, stern, but it’s mostly forced. He holds the pup in his arms now, leaning over Yuuri to kiss him on the head, just below the mark. “How do you feel?”

“Sore, but all right. I think I slept for a long time?” Yuuri guesses, his eyes rolling around the room. They’re in their tent again, though Yuuri has no idea whether it’s been moved or not. Everything looks exactly the same, from what he can see.

“Only four hours,” Victor tells him, seeming displeased by it.

“Really?” Yuuri considers this. “I would have thought days.”

“No.” Victor gestures with his shoulder towards the door. “It’s still dark out.”

“Oh.”

“I’ve only just put you down. I’m sorry the dogs woke you.”

“It wasn’t them, I think.” Yuuri reaches for Victor’s hand, intertwining the fingers. “I just wanted to see you.”

Victor smiles then more like himself—not like he’s thinking of what Yuuri has been through lately, assigning blame to it here or there. Still, the expression falters, slightly, when his gaze is drawn to Yuuri’s hand in his, the dirt upon it, the stark redness of his sleeve. “Let me get you out of this, darling?” he asks, nearly pleads. He needs to see his Yuuri _whole_ again. The garment needs to be out of his sight this instant, he thinks. Preferably burned.

“Sure, Vitya.” Yuuri lifts his arm to him, Victor caressing it then with an impossible gentleness. The fabric is nearly bonded to Yuuri’s skin, from where the blood has set and dried. Victor goes to great lengths to strip it from him slowly, in so that it doesn’t sting or burn at the touch.

The wound underneath is an ugly thing: five corresponding claws marks, starting from the right side of Yuuri’s collarbone and ending at the bend of his inner arm. The place in which they had stopped is the most deep, holes there like individual stab wounds, red and purpling around the edges. It’s all scabbed over—Yuuri’s elven blood saw well to that—but it’s still a horrid thing to consider: how Victor’s dearest was in pain for even one second when he could have prevented it.

“I didn’t feel it, really,” Yuuri says, quiet, and it’s enough to shake Victor out of his stupor, focus again on _Yuuri_ and not this awful thing that’s happened to him. “Truly. It looks worse than it is.”

Victor draws a finger against Yuuri’s collar, where the strike began; there, the skin is almost healed already, leaving not but a faint scar. “This is where…”

“Oh, yes.” Yuuri tries to get up, but Victor pushes him back down, gently. “My necklace… It’s still on the prairie—”

“No, I have it here.” Victor draws it from his pocket, holding it between two hands by the cord. “I saw it. When I spotted it, I thought—”

“Oh, _Vitya—_ ”

“I thought—oh, _darling_ —”

Yuuri is successful, this time, in rising, holding his Vitya in his arms. Victor cries for real then—not merely the act of his throat being caught, but tears upon tears—and he sinks with the weight of it, as though he’s been holding it back for millennia. Yuuri holds him through it, murmuring soft words and stroking his hair at certain intervals, simply allowing Victor to lean on him as long as he needs. Victor mutters some inane nonsense in the middle about not aggravating Yuuri’s injury more, but Yuuri only hushes him, assures him he’s fine, that he is going to heal, as he is still an elf, same as always.

When Victor stops crying, it’s more that he stops making noise; the tears continue still down his face, sparkly and solemn. “Will you—will you let me—?” Victor pulls back, gesturing again to Yuuri’s arm, now left bare. Yuuri nods, allowing Victor to dress the wound: clean it with water, wrap it in cloth. For the blow upon his head, Victor holds his own hand to the area, icing away the swelling, then wrapping it too with a gauze.

“And—” Victor swallows, with effort. He holds Yuuri’s necklace up once more, framing the jewelry around Yuuri’s neck before him. “Will you—?”

Yuuri laughs, just lightly. He holds the gemstone in place, while Victor ties the string around itself, in the back. “When we get to Woodland,” he says now, his tone picking up with enthusiasm, with speed, “I’m going to get you a more durable cord. Something near unbreakable, if I can manage it.”  
  
“That might be impossible,” Yuuri says, but he’s pleased with the notion, tickled by it, even.

Victor only scoffs, playful, kissing at Yuuri’s nape before comes around again to tilt his head back, survey his fine work: his betrothal necklace upon Yuuri, the most deserving elf in the land. “Beautiful,” he says, his voice steady now with the confidence of his statement.

Yuuri blinks, the soot of his lashes kissing against his skin. The garnet practically glows beneath him, even in the dark of night.

It’s the only red Victor wishes to see on him ever again.

* * *

Lilia doesn’t let Yuuri fight. Or well, Victor, Yakov, _and_ Lilia don’t let him fight. But Yuuri can usually wheedle something he wants out of Victor or Yakov; but Lilia is a dead zone. If she is against it, the word is final. And so Yuuri does not participate in the battle following his abduction, much to his ire.

His only consolation is that Victor doesn’t fight either.

“It’s too personal,” Lilia says to him. “You’ll be too reckless. Remain here and watch your husband.”  
  
So in this way, Yuuri and Victor end up babysitting each other, in so that neither sneak off to war.

“I could have killed a thousand orcs in your honor,” Victor says to Yuuri, as they rest in a field. Yuuri is making a daisy chain, about ten flowers long. “I would have come back a hero—all in your name, of course, my sweet.”

“My knight in shining armor,” Yuuri giggles, tying the chain into a circle and placing it atop Victor’s head like a crown. “I know you would have. But to tell you the truth, I like you best right here.” And he kisses him with the statement, as though to add evidence to the claim.

Victor kisses him back, deepening it with an ardent fervor.

Valor is nice enough, Victor thinks. But he’d forgo a thousand victories upon the battlefield if he could only continue winning Yuuri’s heart.

* * *

Cao Bin doesn’t know how he ended up here.

Wherever _here_ is, anyway.

It’s not like his little cabin. It’s light—when it’s daytime, anyway—where he’s trapped. Chained down into the dirt like a dog, surrounded on all four sides by a tent with elves guards at the door, their shadows showing through the fabric from the other side of the mesh.

He could shift. He could shift into a bear, right now, and the shackles would slide off his limbs like water. But he’s no fool. He’d be skewered smartly where he stood, if he was even to consider it; it’s only a princess’s kind nature that keeps him breathing still, so he leans on that, hoping— _praying—_ that said princess’s favorable view of the shifter hasn’t turned overnight, hasn’t blown over merely, like the weather.

So he bides his time until he can get his “audience” with the royal family, as Yuuri promised.

And it comes, as night settles over the camp.

Cao Bin, expecting Yuuri, doesn’t startle when he slips into the tent, almost soundless. But he _does_ startle when he notices the other presence over Yuuri’s shoulder: the ice talent that captured him so soundly, such a blinding white creature he could be mistaken for a high-ranking wizard in the right light.

Even as Yuuri approaches, the fae thing behind him follows so closely—so _precisely—_ he could be mistaken for the physical manifestation of an echo.

It makes Cao Bin’s hackles stand straight on end.

“Are you all right?” Cao almost doesn’t hear the princess, so singularly focused is he on the threat looming behind him. “The elves weren’t too rough with you in getting here, were they?”

“No,” he answers, after a moment; but his eyes remain entirely on the other presence.

“ _Oh_ ,” Yuuri makes a small exclamation. He takes the elf behind him by the shoulders, pushing him a bit forward. “Where are my manners? This is my husband, Victor, Prince of Woodland. Remember, I mentioned him…?”

“I remember.”

“I remember you too, you vile creature,” Victor says, venom in his words. His hands are folded into his sleeves, but if Cao focuses, he can see the elf is shaking, with a concealed fury. “You’re the bastard that dared to harm my beloved.”

“Now, Vitya—”

“You should know your rightful place is _in_ the ground, not upon it. If I had my way, in fact, you’d be halfway to rotting by now. Your descendants wouldn’t even know your name; I’d blot it out of each and every history book. And should someone have remembered you, in the flesh? They’d spit upon the recollection, so as not to curse themselves or their family to the same miserable fate.”

“Vitya…”

“And yet—” Victor inhales sharply, holding the air in his lungs. “ _And yet._ ” Breathes out. “My treasure wishes to spare you. Give me one good reason why we should.”

“I didn’t kill him,” Cao says, his tongue jumping to his defense before his brain could audit the response. The shifter sees the expression on the prince’s face go dark, but Yuuri holds him back, with an arm wrapped around the waist.

“He didn’t though!” the princess says. “He really didn’t kill me! And he could have!”

“ _Why?_ ” Victor snarls—but it seems he didn’t want an answer from Cao Bin, this time.

Yuuri’s eyes go bright and scarlet.

It’s incredible to watch: a silent conversation, communicated only through looks and a deeper level of consciousness Cao can’t even begin understand. You can almost see it, physically: the back-and-forth, the game of catch. The shifts in countenance, in posture. The prince communicating sounds where the princess didn’t need them. An expression unraveling, as understanding dawned.

All while one of their eyes burned like fire.

Victor looks at him again, when the conversation seems to reach its natural conclusion. His expression appears less severe then, more appraising. As though he’s trying to parse something out, fit the final piece into the puzzle.

He lowers himself into a crouch, just before Cao.

“And you thought working with _orcs_ was your next best move?”

“I didn’t feel as though I had a choice,” the shifter answers, honestly.

Victor looks back at Yuuri; red blazes between their glances, like a tangible wire.

The prince rises with that, settling back into a neutral stance.

“ _Well—_ ” Yuuri says with a clap, as though they’d just gotten through with a normal conversation. “—I think we’ll be able to work something out. We will have to go over it with our mother and father, of course—the king and queen, I mean—before we can finalize the details, but I’m sure we can all come to an agreement that makes sense for everyone. Does that sound all right to you, Cao Bin?”

The shifter blinks. “Sure.”

Victor turns, as though to leave.

 _Thank him._ Cao jumps, at the voice inside his head. He glances at Yuuri, who points at his partner’s back. _It will go a long way._

“Thank you,” Cao says, shakily, “Your Highness.”

Victor says nothing but makes a noise of acknowledgement. Yuuri follows him out, looking pleased as you could be.

* * *

Yakov and Lilia return from war, and it’s all Victor and Yuuri can do to sit on the floor and grab at their legs like children, ready to be regaled with tales from the front.

They spin quite the story. The elves’ triumph was total and absolute; not a soul of their own was lost, out on that field. Lilia had been right; the orcs had been gearing up for a preemptive strike, knowing the abduction of Yuuri would send them into a panic. But with Yakov’s forces and Lilia’s level head, they were able to cut them off before the orcs were properly prepared. The result had been a landslide victory, one not often seen but cherished, to be sure. There was to be a raucous celebration tonight in the camp, with lots of reasons to drink and be merry.

“We should celebrate, too, the return of our precious son-in-law,” Lilia says, tilting Yuuri’s chin up. “You did well, Yuuri. Kept your head.” And she means it in more than one way.

Yuuri just beams at her, Yakov reaching over to pet him on the head. “Forgive me for—” He clears his throat, roughly. “—sending you out, on your own. It won’t happen again.”

“It’s all right. You didn’t know.” But Victor pushes on his father’s knee regardless, in an act of good-natured ribbing.

“And your birthday!” Lilia gasps, with a hand over her mouth. “Is it still today?”

“Just for a couple more hours—”

“We’ll celebrate that too! And then we will stop by Sealand on the way home, to see your family!”

They do celebrate it that night—and in Sealand, and in Woodland too. Drinks and dancing, starry nights, cakes and cuddles and plenty of kisses stolen between Victor and Yuuri. It’s as though they make up for the one bad day with many, in so that the event they rather forget gets compacted into a second of irritation, amongst a lifetime—an entire eternity—of glee. 

And truly, what more could Yuuri want than that?

* * *

Even after Cao Bin is dead and gone—centuries later, millennia—Yuuri still walks along the edge of the Woodland forest, occasionally, where the barrier does not extend.

They do not know him, then: Cao’s descendants, the children of his children. They’re soft, gentle spirits who do not know conflict. The forest protects them, keeps them cloistered in the safety of its canopy. They’re smaller, Yuuri thinks, than Cao was: more “fluffy creature” than “deadly terror.” Yuuri watches them from afar, tracking the babies of the group as they scratch at trees, run around toppling over each other like Yuuri’s dogs back home, also grandchildren of the dogs he had before—the very dogs that saved him from these cubs’ forefather, though they do not know it.

Yuuri feels a presence wrap around him, from where he stands and watches. “Everything all right, starlight?”

“Yes, just checking in on them.”

“And they’re well?”  
  
“As ever.”

A kiss upon his nape. “Good.”

And they leave the shifters to their piece of Woodland.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For real though, I was kinda stuck, like, "How is Yuuri gonna explain this in a way that's NOT gonna make Victor wanna kill Cao?" And then I remembered: I don't have to do aaaaaaaanything.
> 
> Deus ex Yuurina.

**Author's Note:**

> ALERT: This is the first elven AU installment with multiple chapters! If you want to be notified when the next part(s) come out, you must subscribe to the fic or the series or both!
> 
> See y'all next week~


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